


For Now I am You

by DataTrekker



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Character Death, Children, Depressing, Established Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade, Heavy Angst, M/M, True Love, mystrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 10:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DataTrekker/pseuds/DataTrekker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade's life after Mycroft's last, and fatal, mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Now I am You

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story I just kept waking up to in the middle of the night, I had to write it out and I thought I’d share it.

They buried Mycroft’s empty coffin in a private grave lot, Mycroft had even prepared a couples grave for him and Gregory. He’d organised it the first week they had started dating and that fact made Lestrade smile. Few were at the actual funeral, just his close employees like butlers and maids, their surrogate Elizabeth, Anthea, Sherlock, and John, who had to hold back Lestrade from jumping into the grave as the coffin was lowered. Over the weeks, as news of Mycroft’s death slowly spread out into the world, he started receiving gifts and flowers sent to Mycroft’s former office. Anthea was kind enough to pass them on to Lestrade. Eventually they bulk sent the flowers, boxes of them a day at one point.  
After a few months and hundreds of flowers and trinkets later they all forgot about The Iceman and the little policeman he had left behind. Lestrade placed the flowers in the baby’s nursery. It was a boy named Nicholas after Mycroft’s first love and first loss. Mycroft painted the nursery with adventurous imagery with green carpet for green; he knew it was going to be a boy. Lestrade was convinced it would be a little girl and went shopping in Paris with Mycroft for girls clothes, saying that even if the first wasn't a boy their second child definitely would be. There was no second child. A large picture of Mycroft hanged across from the baby’s cot. He hung one of the few pictures he had of Mycroft smiling, a portrait Lestrade insisted they got together so he’d have something to look at when Mycroft was away. That was a month before Mycroft left for what would be his final mission.

Lestrade resented Mycroft at first, he promised he'd send word to Lestrade somehow if he had died. Every time the door opened he expected a man in a black suit and hat, handing him a black envelope but he never received that closure, that piece of paper saying once and for all that his love, the man who shared his very soul, was dead. After the first six months Anthea generously changed his papers, allowing Gregory access to his property and assets, Mycroft Holmes was now officially deceased. Eventually his resentment turned into realization that Mycroft wasn't coming back home and no paper, or lack thereof, would make it better.

John and Sherlock would often come over to see how Lestrade was holding up, which was usually well but John would often send Sherlock to find something trivial so Lestrade didn't feel the need to put up face for the brother of his husband. John eventually had children of his own and often brought them over to play with the shy Nicholas, he was truly Mycroft’s son with thin brownish hair, pale freckle-prone skin and red, chubby cheeks. Lestrade gave his son everything he had in him and Nicholas seldom took him for granted.  
Lestrade lived out the rest of his life in relative solitude as a writer, scribing out all of the stories he’d imagine when Mycroft was away and now that he wasn’t coming back he felt compelled to write them all down. Each and every last image Lestrade had created when Mycroft wasn't there now filled endless pages of books he published under a pen name, he naturally changed Mycroft’s name as well. He would’ve kept it if he too hadn't felt a strong duty to his countrymen and to the two Holmes’ that were still alive. He wrote of the grand adventures he imagined Mycroft would go on, he visited exotic places, he’d brought his son along to the safer destinations. He wrote spy novels, based on the papers Mycroft left him, the ones Mycroft intended Lestrade to ‘find’. Mycroft always thought his beloved Gregory would end up writing and he wanted to fuel his lovers venture as much as he could, even if he wasn't alive, Mycroft ensured Lestrade would find plenty of ‘hidden’ secrets strewn throughout the manor. Lestrade also wrote adventure novels, aimed at children and read them often to his son under the happy gaze of his deceased husband. He even a few romance novels, aimed at the narrow selection of good novels centering around gay men.

The words filled the emptiness Mycroft left behind. Lestrade wrote where Mycroft use to conduct his work in the house, the study where Lestrade would sleep if Mycroft couldn’t make it to bed. He finally understood why Mycroft refused to sell the house and move when they got married, he loved the ghosts as much as he loved Lestrade and Lestrade learnt to love his ghosts as well. They were men who were not use to moving on and so they never did and in Lestrade’s case, he never would. He never married again, never showed the slightest interest in courting another person. He grew old in their manor, not becoming a bitter or miserable old man, as he always feared, but one of unbridled compassion and incredible softness. Lestrade was never afraid to say Mycroft’s death, though people would often say disappearance, Lestrade had resigned himself to his lovers fate, and correctly so, people like Mycroft do not simply disappear. Mycroft’s untimely death was crippling to him but he was made stronger but his unbridled love for the man as well. Endless love fueled each movement because without Mycroft’s love Lestrade felt he was nothing and he knew he would have Mycroft’s love forever, each footstep was shadowed by the fantasy that his husband was behind him spiritually. Lestrade was never a spiritual or religious man but clinging to the idea that if he were still around he would be right there, right by Lestrade’s side, made the world a bearable place to exist. And seeing his son, one of the few connections to Mycroft, he had Mycroft’s sharp eyes, that glinted with an unrestrained intelligence, made his world bright, filled with glorious colours and wondrous music. 

He found an odd happiness with Sherlock, as they grew older. The two senior, single men had a lot in common. Lestrade made it his mission to become much worldlier after Mycroft died and he did so. Though nowhere near Mycroft’s level of intelligence and lacking his ability to draw lines between seemingly unrelated things he still strived to make the late Mycroft Holmes proud and he thought he would be, if he could see. But he made sure to never lose his loving touch, his kindness or his courage. He would chat with Sherlock during long nights, where the wind would pick the stray leaf that he’d miss and carry it cross-country. He’d ask for advice, reminisce, Sherlock tell him exaggerated tales of their childhood and sometimes he’d excuse himself to weep pitifully over Mycroft’s pillow and Sherlock would wait patiently in the lounge room, by the fire, and shed a tear or two as well, if Lestrade’s howls should echo down the hallway. That’s the strongest thing they had in common, the men who loved them were gone and they shared the saddest gift of all, loneliness. 

As for Mycroft, with his last dying breaths he thought of his beloved Gregory, how he was both happy and sad. Happy that he got to love again, to live those years that were stolen from him by a horrid family tied to strict, cold views of the world that stripped him of all chances at experiencing youth. Sad that he had to let it go so soon, but still… Still Mycroft smiled as he was crudely shoved onto the dusty, barren Earth and unceremoniously shot in the head. He smiled because Gregory would still be at home, safe and warm, and though he would never see Mycroft again he knew that Lestrade could carry on as Mycroft never could. He’d still be there, living and loving enough for the both of them. If Mycroft were to die first he knew he’d throw himself into work, doing as much to kill himself as quickly as possible. He’d probably even take to the grave beside Lestrade, press him hands against his coffin and shoot himself. At least this way, this way one of them would still be able to love and live and keep moving forward.

And Mycroft was right, Lestrade loved like he had when Mycroft was still walking the Earth. Though he never returned to work after taking leave he still was active in the community, Mycroft’s wealth was far more than Lestrade ever anticipated. His novels of Mycroft’s fictionalised escapades sold well, he donated all his money to various charities all over the world, and he became an activist in wake of Mycroft’s death, promoting mental health, gun control, and children’s welfare.

He build an observatory in their backyard, nothing in Mycroft’s will ever became Lestrade’s, everything he had was forever theirs. He never sold a thing Mycroft’s owned except for a few unnecessarily expensive cars that he was once told by Mycroft were gifts from people he detested, keeping the cars as trophies. He sold them fund the observatory, not wanting to put the money he made into his own life. Lestrade spent most of his lonely nights there, gazing up at the stars as they did on their first overseas holiday. They sat up on their isolated island, wrapped in a blanket and talking about their childhood, their families. That was when Lestrade learnt of Mycroft’s family, how his parents were, how he both loathed and revered his father. Lestrade promised him that they would be better parents and even in death Mycroft was still able to be that wonderful father he never had. They slept outside that night, falling asleep from emotional exhaustion on the balcony, under the stars they loved.

Nicholas followed in Mycroft’s footsteps. Nicholas never felt lonely, despite the fact it was just him and his father. He had a few close friends, the kind of friends that follow you into old age with undying love. There were times he felt alone so he too, would retreat into the observatory and ask the stars to teach him about the father he never met. But he did know his, Lestrade talked forever about Mycroft, hung his pictures on the walls, commissioned paintings of him to ensure that his kind face was always looking down upon them both. He was never painted as the Iceman and Nicholas knew little about that until his late 20s, when he positioned to take over Mycroft’s throne. 

One of Lestrade’s last memories was about his son confronting him about his late partner. Lestrade couldn’t blame Nicholas for his anger, Mycroft was one ruthless man. They spent the entire night reminiscing about him, Lestrade told him all the stories he’d been hiding, how Mycroft was just lovely as he was poisonous. That he was the genius who orchestrated God knows how many crimes and how it was all in the name of protecting the country. Lestrade also remembered vividly on his deathbed about when Nicholas asked, when Lestrade could still write, if he’d be alone like his father, and how Lestrade laughed. “Of course you will, my son. You may be alone but you will find someone, like your father merely spotted me, and you will fall in love. And though it might burn you up to watch him love someone else he will eventually love you.” Lestrade almost cried when he saw the man Nicholas brought home, at the age of 35. He looked just like his father, in a neat pinstripe suit, expensive tie clip that held his perfect silk tie straight. And as for his eventual husband? He was called Jonathan and looked just like Lestrade did at the age of 35. A divorcee too, apparently one who saw the signs I didn’t, Lestrade thought. 

Then there were the grandchildren, four of them, only one ever saw their grandfather alive. The pair visited Mycroft’s and Lestrade’s grave once very few months, when Nicholas was finally given a day or two of rest. As the kids grew older they too went to see their grandparents, who Nicholas always talked about, just how Lestrade often spoke to him about his late father. He’d tell them the story of how they met. Each time Nicholas and Jonathan had a child they would bring the new born out to see their graves, introducing each child. Lestrade even got to introduce their first, Mycroft, to his namesake, his grandfather. Then there was the loud Hamish, who grew up to be a police officer like his granddad Greg, Sherlie, named after Nicholas' uncle Sherlock, she was their first daughter, and the timid Elizabeth, named after the kind surrogate who still looked over the Holmes family, their faithful guardian until her death a decade after Gregory's. 

Lestrade died happily, surrounded by his family, at the age of 93, 34 years after Mycroft's death. His last words were “I've missed you too, darling.”


End file.
